I've got a lot of guitars and spend more time dicking around with them than playing them. Sad really.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Is this a Washburn disease?

One of the projects I have is my RR2V, which is a bit of a 'barn find'. I've been meaning for a while to have a look at it and today dug it out. I plan on this being my next refinishing project, given it's in such a state. It may get a new tremolo as well, the one fitted is missing one of the original fine tuners and a bit rusty.

Looking at it I was considering that as it was a cheap plywood guitar it might be amusing to 'wear your ply with pride' and go for a clear finish. Perhaps even bevel the edges a little to show it off like the Gibson 'Zoot suit' SGs.

I'd noticed that the paint had flaked at the tremolo stud but assumed that was just down to a little shrinkage and movement under string pressure. However it's done what my two project Mercurys have done, i.e. a lack of wood round the bush means it's broken through. This time it's 'behind' the bush in the tremolo cavity.

They've also broken into the control and pickup cavities when routing out for the tremolo springs. This is on top of the very real cracks at the neck pocket, multiple dings and chewed up tips of the V that years of abuse have given it. So all in all the body is in a pretty poor shape even though the neck is in nice shape and great to play.

Now I'm not so sure what to do with it. Do I try and rescue this, or do I simply bin the body and keep all the parts? There really is very little wood around the bridge studs so I'm not sure using the same method I did with the Mercurys will work.